Monday, August 25, 2008

What price pampered buttocks?

Sometimes things in the office get personal, okay?

Like when someone ‘borrows’ your favourite Rexel stapler, and then adopts it as a member of their own family. Or that day when someone borrows your mechanical pencil halfway through a meeting, gives it a few loving clicks and then glances at you with that sly ‘I’m not giving it back’ look.

Neither of these things has happened in my office, I’m pleased to report.

What does go on a bit around our office is chair swapping. One day you’re sitting in relative luxury on your chair of choice, and then 24 hours later you’re perched on something about as comfortable and forgiving as a stack of roof tiles.

Occasionally, things get even worse, and someone cracks a tile but still insists that the end result is ‘bum-worthy’.

Recently, I succeeded in snapping the arm off one of our chairs during a meeting (I subsequently brought in some tools, and made it worse).

During the same meeting, a … solid … member of our team sat down heavily on one of our gaslift office chairs. There was a loud, sickening ‘crunch’ (like someone jumping on a giant stapler) and the team member concerned sank about 2 inches. The centre spindle of the chair had pushed through the leg assembly and was pressing into the floor.

Believe it or not, this chair is still in circulation in our office.

I don’t think Herman Miller’s Aeron chair would do this. The average price of this chair seems to be around $1400 in Sydney – depending on what upgrades you choose to include with it (there’s even some variations on the wheels you can fit to it!).

It’s kind of the Rolls Royce of office chairs blended with the styling of a Subaru Impreza – and very comfortable apparently (it would want to be). It seems to combine minimalism yet every luxury option all in the one package.

Clever design always interests me, but I do wonder when it spills over into excess – not that I can ever see this becoming a problem in our office.

2 comments:

Cade Whitbourn said...

I've gone the inflatable gym ball as my office chair. Nobody is likely to borrow it, and it is surprisingly easy to sit on.

Adriaan said...

Yes, I suppose you won't be getting any loud 'crunches' out of that one.

Probably just a loud 'bang'.